Fredi Gonzalez was of the view that Craig Kimbrel could get four outs if he needed to last night, but not six. Weird, but whatever. Kimbrel himself, however, seems to think he could’ve gotten six.

Go check out this post at Deadspin where Evan Brunell — who is deaf and reads lips — watches the video of Kimbrel in the bullpen. Kimbrel, according to Brunell, said that he told Fredi Gonzalez that he could pitch two innings.

No way of knowing for sure, but the video certainly shows an upset-looking Kimbrel. Not upset that the Braves were losing, but mad that he wasn’t a part of it. He’s irked.

As I said, let the media start some BS without having a clue. Just make it up.

s0krat3s - Oct 8, 2013 at 9:30 PM

Braves had the best bullpen ERA in baseball for a reason. And that reason was not just Craig Kimbrel.
When the bottom 8th started NOBODY was calling for Kimbrel to come in to pitch two innings.
You only heard this after the fact.

It is all monday morning QB. The same crap Braves have been trying to do all season to throw Gonzalez under the bus when they should be looking squarely at Frank Wren. (and in this case, the players involved in giving up runs).

hasbeen5 - Oct 9, 2013 at 9:37 AM

I groaned when Carpenter came in and not Kimbrel. And to call this hindsight is ridiculous, I’ve read similar articles on this site for a long time now. The idea that a closer can only pitch the 9th is ridiculous, especially when there is no tomorrow.

This shows exactly why Fredi can’t win with the fans. Ever since he overworked the bullpen a couple of years ago everyone has complained about how bad he is to the bullpen and how he uses them too much. Now, everyone thinks he should have decided to use the closer for two innings.

In 65IP this season Carpenter had a 1.78ERA. He struck out over a batter per inning. He gave up one more HR than Kimbrel over 1 1/3 fewer innings pitched. His WHIP was .99 on the season. In the last month, Carpenter had an ERA of 0.79 (Kimbrel 2.89), a WHIP of 0.44 (1.07) and 12 K/BB (5). In September/October Carpenter was the better pitcher across the board as Kimbrel had a couple of rough outings and Carpenter was lights out. In game two Kimbrel struggled with control, walking two hitters in the ninth while working for 4 outs. There is absolutely nothing that points to Carpenter not being the man to pitch the 8th inning.

neoshweaty - Oct 8, 2013 at 3:41 PM

And yet, Gonzalez is going to come back next season even if he is responsible for the Braves not even seeing game 5 which would have been at home.

If Julio Teheran, Kris Medlen, or David Carpenter had done the job that they are paid to do nobody would be talking about Gonzalez today. You cannot pitch like the Braves did in this series and put 100% of the blame on the manager.

Teheran has not been the 5th starter since the first month of the season, working his ERA under 3.00 at one point in August. Medlen was never the 4th starter this season. It is exactly the job they are paid to do, pitch the ball. Injuries happen, it is not Gonzalez’s fault that Hudson broke his ankle or Venters and O’Flaherty went down. He had to lean on the younger guys all year to fill in. They are the ones that got the team to the postseason. Their inability to perform at the same level certainly didn’t help. The blame falls across the whole team however, as the Braves lineup didn’t help any of them out with solid run support. The decision to play Gattis in LF that the fans have been clamoring for all season burned them repeatedly. The advantage of a solid bat is lost when that bat gives runs to the other team in the field.

It’s a sensitive team that takes themselves way too seriously. No wonder they get tight and choke in big games. Wish more of these guys had some fight to go out there and win, instead of taking offense because someone went yard on them or an ex-legend of the team honestly answered a question about who he thought would win the series.

Don’t like what Chipper said? Go prove him wrong by winning the series. Or, you could act like babies about it, and then do EXACTLY what he said he thought would happen – lose in 4 games.

Rays fans are all excited about last night’s game, but they may want to curb their enthusiasm. I passed by the hotel where the visiting Sox are staying and heard some distressiing news. A small but influential number of the players, known to be diehard Republican/Tea Party types, are demanding the Rays agree to replay the 9th inning!

If Rays manager Joe Madden won’t agree, they will refuse to play the next game. Their position is that the outcome last night is not in the long-term best interest of baseball. Joe Madden, on hearing of this condition, called the request ridiculous, saying, “it is well established that the recourse for Boston players not happy with the outcome of the last game played is to win the next one.”

The Tea Party-aligned Boston players say that Joe’s unwillingness to negotiate and compromise will cause a shutdown – and the Rays will be to blame. The Tea Party Sox players want to keep playing, but if their demands are not met, the shutdown will be the fault of Madden and the Rays for their unwillingness to be democratic about the dispute.

It’s Juan Uribe.No one thought he would hit a bomb like that.He’s 34 but looks like he’s in his 50’s.It was a lucky shot and Kimbrel never had 6 innings saves before and unless your Mariano he isn’t a sure thing.

Excatly. Braves fans have been nuts this year. Absolutely everything they can have to create blame they use to throw Gonzalez under the bus.

Before the game everyone was wanting to throw Fredi to the wolves for starting Freddy Garcia. How does that look now? Garcia was amazing. And pitched miles better than what Maholm and his 5.91 road ERA could have done.

Suddenly all the haters forget that was even an issue. They just move on and find something new to hate.

Enough already. Stop the witch hunt and start blaming some of the players who completely failed to do their job.

Gonzalez didn’t make Medlen pitch horribly.
He didn’t make Teheran pitch terribly.
He put together the best bullpen in baseball. At some point you have to have faith in that.